The First Sino-Japanese War was fought between Qing China and Meiji
Japan officially
from

Aug 1, 1894 to April 17, 1895
( fighting broke out on July 25, 1894 ) over control of Korea,

which
was a Chinese tribute state . Many foreign observers expected China to win, as

its navy was stronger on paper with its ironclad battleships and the Chinese army was

assumed to be massive. While China had modernized somewhat under

the Self Strengthening Movement, it could not match the rapid
progress made in

Japan under the Meiji Restoration.

Korea
1890s

The war started in the Seoul area
of modern South Korea. Both China and Japan had the right to
send troops
to Korea under the Tientsin Convention of 1885. A rebellion
broke out in Korea in 1894, known
as the Tonghak Rebellion. Japan used this as a pretext to try to
start a war with China in Korea,which China and Japan had been
ruling as a co-protectorate, with China playing the leading
role. Soon, both China and Japan had troops in Korea, and this explosive
situation soon led to conflict .Japan felt it was strong enough
at this point to challenge China in a war over Korea.

Battle
of the Yalu

After losing a minor battle at Seonghwan
near Seoul, the main Chinese force concentrated

in Pyongyang and was defeated,
despite outnumbering the
Japanese. The following naval

Battle of the Yalu
was one of the first
modern naval battles in history with
ironclad

ships, quick-fire guns and torpedoes used. The Chinese
lost five ships and retreated

to Port Arthur, then to Wei Hai,
never to threaten the Japanese in the Yellow Sea again .

After
the defeat in Pyongyang, there was no more Chinese resistance
in Korea

and two Japanese armies invaded Manchuria, with Port
Arthur, Newchang,

Yinkou being taken . While taking Port Arthur,
the Japanese found the mutilated remains

of Japanese prisoners
and went on a frenzy of killing in Port Arthur in which

almost
all of the remaining Chinese population of the city was massacred,
known as

the Port Arthur Massacre .

The
Beiyang
Navy base at
Wei Hai fell to the Japanese in early 1895 and the ships in the

Chinese
Beiyang Fleet were sunk or captured, while the Japanese lost
no major ships.

even though the Japanese were outnumbered
60,000 to 25,000, they managed to hold the city

inflicting heavy
loses.Japan was poised for a two prong attack on Beijing from
Manchuria

and Shandong ,
leading the Chinese
to seek peace.

Li
Hong-zhang, the viceroy of Chili (Hebei) drilled his armies in western
techniques and stressed officer-soldier ties , Confucian values
and tried to modernize the Chinese forces against the foreign menace
.

The Treaty of Shimonoseki was signed on 17 April
17,1895. China

recognized
the independence of Korea and ceded the strategic

Liaodong Peninsula
( also called the ' Regent's Sword' in many books of the period )

with Port Arthur,
Taiwan and the Pescadores(Peng Hu) Islands to Japan and was
to pay

an indemnity of 263,176,701 taels
of silver (about 150 million U.S.dollars ) , most

to
Japanese trade. Japanese could move freely in the interior and
set up businesses.

The Japanese war indemnity and loans to fiance the
war of almost 120 million taels

to fiance the war were a large drain
on the economy .

During the peace negotiations, there was
an assassination attempt against Li Hong-zhang, the

Chinese
plenipotentiary and the Japanese
emperor Meiji declared an unconditional armistice on March 29,
1895 Japanese guilt over this led the Japanese to
accept more moderate concessions(they had wanted to occupy
Shan-hai-kwan, Taku, and Tien-tsin(Tianjin)
and some costal forts as well ).

Russo-Japanese
War monument at Port Arthur, site of a battle in the Sino-Japanese
War as well . Shortly
after the treaty was signed, Russia, France and Germany united under
the Triple

Intervention
and threatened war with Japan if it did not withdraw from Port Arthur,
which it did in the face of this triple threat. Shortly afterward,
Russia occupied Port Arthur .

Japanese
Sino Japanese War Medal

The
major consequences of the war were that Japan was recognized
as a rising world power,

increased
xenophobia in China leading to the Boxer Rebellion in 1899 and
Korea

becoming
a colony of Japan .The success of the armed forces lead to increasing
power of the

militarists
in Japan .

Estimates
of Japanese killed very from 800 to almost 14,000 . Cholera killed
more Japanese troops than battle, and Japanese troops brought the
disease home, which killed and estimated 30,000.